This invention relates to a medical treatment device for treating a patient. More particularly, this invention relates to a securing means for a treatment member which adapts itself for use with a wide variety of individual patients and body parts of a particular patient.
Several medical treatment devices are known which are secured to a patient to apply medical treatment for a period of time. As an example, magnetic treatment devices are known which apply a magnetic field to a particular portion of a patient to provide a number of therapeutic benefits. These treatment devices have enjoyed success over the past years, however, some problems still exist in terms of the patient-interface assembly.
A major problem is mounting the devices such that they can be used with the wide variety of anatomical geometrics that the device will encounter. To be economically feasible, the device must be utilized with a large cross-section of patients. It is not always practical to tailor a device to an individual patient, and thus, to be practical, the device must adjust to the size of the patient.
This also increases the difficulty of properly positioning the treatment members with respect to a patient which is important in many such devices. As an example, in the application of a magnetic field to a patient it is generally important that the medical treatment member, or the field generating means, be accurately and precisely positioned relative to a particular portion of the patient's anatomy to attain optimum therapeutic results. With the prior art devices, it is difficult to accurately and reproducibly position the medical treatment device.
Further problems exist in that most devices for securing medical treatment devices to a patient used in the prior art are somewhat uncomfortable. This is burdensome to the patient, since these devices are often worn for relatively long periods of time.
It is known in the prior art to mount medical treatment members in a deformable material such that they can be shaped to an individual patient. The clay-like materials typically utilized are somewhat adaptable to a particular patient; however, they do not totally address the problem of properly positioning a medical treatment member with respect to the patient. By deforming the material, the position or shape of the medical treatment member may sometimes be moved. For this reason, it may be difficult to accurately position the device. In addition, such deformable materials do not fully address the discomfort problem. These deformable members typically require a relatively great amount of deformable material to adequately adjust to the size of a particular patient. For this reason, they are relatively heavy and uncomfortable.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a securing means for a medical treatment member that adapts itself to various sizes of patients. In addition, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a device in which the securing means allows a patient to comfortably wear the device for a relatively long period of time.